Feds seek use of surveyor's statement: 'I don't want to go to jail'

View full sizeBayou La Batre Mayor Stan Wright arrives in federal court for an arraignment on Wednesday Oct. 12, 2011, in Mobile, Alabama. Wright stands accused of illegally profiting from the sale of land to the city for a federally funded housing subdivision. (Press-Register/Victor Calhoun)

MOBILE, Alabama — A land surveyor negotiating a right-of-way purchase for a subdivision at the heart of a federal indictment against the mayor of Bayou La Batre expressed concerns about the transaction’s legality, prosecutors indicated today.

In a court filing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Murphy served notice that prosecutors intend to use statements that the surveyor, who since has died, made to the property owner.

Mayor Stan Wright and his daughter, Mary Cook, stand accused of conspiring to enrich the mayor at the taxpayers’ expense through the purchase of a fifth of an acre that was used to widen the entrance of Safe Harbor Estates off Shine Road and Alabama 188. The city built that subdivision in 2007 for Hurricane Katrina victims using funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

According to court records, Wright transferred the property to Cook, who then sold it to the city for $27,249. She then directed that money back to her parents in a series of checks.

This afternoon, U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose set the trial for May 21.

Wright’s attorney has maintained that the transaction was above-board and has pointed to Bayou La Batre City Council meeting minutes showing that he disclosed his daughter’s ownership of the land and then abstained from the vote.

But the U.S. Attorney’s Office contends in court documents that the city overpaid for the land. In today’s filing, prosecutors alleged that the city also paid an above-market rate for the right of way of a nearby piece of property owned by Godwin.

“The payment to Ms. Godwin was intended to provide cover for the extraordinary payment that was made to Ms. (Cook),” Murphy wrote.

Godwin could not be reached for comment, and Wright’s attorney, Arthur Madden, declined to comment.

Hollingsworth negotiated the purchase of right of way from Godwin on behalf of Bayou La Batre, according to Murphy’s filing. He and Godwin met on several occasions.

Ordinarily, witnesses cannot testify about statements that other people made. But Murphy wrote in her motion that Hollingsworth’s statement should be allowed as an exception to the hearsay rule.

“The United States believes that Mr. Hollingsworth’s statement, in the context of the purchase of the right of way, that he did not want to go to jail, is an expression of his then existing mental and emotional conditions and is admissible,” she wrote.

Cook's attorney, Richard Alexander, has argued that the price his client received —$3 per square foot — was a fair value. He has sought to introduce Hollingsworth’s notes indicating that the rate is the exact same price that Godwin received.

Prosecutors have asked the judge to bar those notes on hearsay grounds. Murphy wrote that if the judge allows the notes into evidence, though, prosecutors should be able to use Hollingsworth’s statement to attack his credibility.

Alexander said this afternoon that he would oppose that.

"I hope when I'm dead and gone, no one will besmirch me like that," he said. "The government's stretching pretty hard to get in evidence that doesn't sound like it's normal evidence."

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Updated at 5:13 p.m. to include comments from defense attorney Richard Alexander.